by T. A. White
I let loose a frustrated sigh. Spooks and their stupid dominance games.
“Tell me what you know of the Fae and the crone’s plans for them,” Liam said, bringing his face close to Miriam’s.
She struggled, attempting to turn away with little success. He let go of one hand, grabbing her chin and yanking it towards his.
Her face went slack as his eyes caught hers. He repeated his question of before.
“She hopes to strengthen our position,” Miriam said, sounding calm and blissful. Not at all like the confident woman I’d come to know.
I hated the vampire’s ability to hypnotize. It subsumed a human’s will and turned them into mindless drones.
It usually didn’t work quite as well on spooks, but then, Liam wasn’t exactly an average vampire. He had centuries of experience with the power to back it up.
Miriam answered his questions with little hesitation.
He let her go and stepped back.
“Happy now?” I snapped. We’d learned nothing of note from that exchange.
“For now,” he said, turning toward the door.
Miriam slumped against the counter, every line of her body speaking of exhaustion.
“I hope the Fae turn you into their pets,” Miriam said. The words sounded like a curse. “Although, from what I hear, it wouldn’t be the first time.”
Liam froze in place, giving me the brief impression of stone. His face was cold and furious, while power shone in his eyes like a beacon in the darkest part of night.
I grabbed his arm and towed him toward the door. “Nope, I think you’ve had enough fun for now.”
If I didn’t get him out of here, I feared for Miriam’s life.
“Aileen, don’t come back,” Miriam said, her voice quiet but clear nonetheless.
I hesitated at the door. With reluctance, I nodded. I could see why she might not want to see me again. Not after what Liam had just done.
Gazing back at the destruction in her shop and the bone-deep weariness on her face, I couldn’t help but be sad at what I had wrought, even if that had not been my intention in coming here. It made me feel like a curse in truth.
“This wasn’t what I planned,” I said. Miriam still didn’t look at me.
I sighed.
“Blessed be upon your house and future endeavors,” I said, giving her the witches’ blessing. It was a small thing, but it was all I had for the moment.
She flicked her fingers at me, a spell wrapped around them. I ducked out before it could land.
The cool night air embraced me as I headed toward where Liam waited by the car. He leaned against it, his face arrogant as he watched me approach.
I stopped inches from him, anger burning through me. “What the hell was that?”
The question was out before I could think of a better way of phrasing it.
“That was me getting answers,” he coldly responded.
My eyes widened. “That was you burning a bridge. What do we do if we need to go back? She won’t talk to us again. We’ll be lucky if we can get within three feet of her shop after this.”
Liam watched me, my anger having no effect on him, as if my worries had no bearing. It ramped my rage up another notch and I fought not to rearrange his pretty face.
“We were getting nowhere doing it your way,” he said. “I expedited matters.”
Expedited matters right off the edge of a cliff.
He opened the car door, not waiting for me to argue any further. “Let’s go. There are others I’d like to visit before the night is through.”
I remained locked in place. “Oh no, you’re on your own for that.”
“It was not a request. Get in the car,” he ordered.
I folded my arms. “You’re not going to alienate any of my other contacts.”
He gritted his teeth, obviously losing patience with me. “Quit with the hysterics. I haven’t the time today.”
Hysterics. Nice. I narrowed my eyes at him, baring my teeth at him.
He responded brusquely, “You accepted this job. Quitting now would only have nasty consequences for yourself.”
Was he actually threatening me?
He lifted an eyebrow. “You can either come along and keep me from killing anyone, or you can stay here, leaving me to run wild. Your choice.”
I snarled at him. That was no choice and he knew it. “You’re an unfeeling jackass.”
His lips twisted in a victorious smile as he held my door open for me.
“Thought you might see it my way,” he murmured.
I seated myself as he walked around the car. He’d just slid inside when a crash came from Miriam’s shop.
CHAPTER NINE
“What was that?” I asked.
It had sounded like glass breaking. A woman screamed seconds later.
“That’s coming from Miriam’s shop,” I said, already reaching for the door.
Liam hit the locks, twisting the key in the ignition as the car rumbled to a start.
“You’re not going to help her?” I asked.
“You expected different from an unfeeling jackass?” he mocked.
“Forget it,” I said. I put my shoulder into the door, the metal squealing in protest as I slowly forced it open.
Liam swore and hit the button, unlocking the door.
Knew he’d see it my way, I thought smugly as I shoved it open and got out.
“Aileen, don’t be stupid. This is the witch’s problem,” he argued, not getting out.
I leaned down and looked through the open door. “Guess that’s the difference between you and me. You can watch as someone is hurt because they’re not one of yours, while I never could.”
I slammed the door on whatever response he might have made, jogging back toward the shop. It would have been nice to have a weapon, not that my gun would do me much good if I faced golems.
To my relief, Miriam hadn’t gotten around to locking the front door behind me. I slipped in, grabbing the bell on top of the door to stop it from announcing my presence.
The front of the shop was still empty, shadows making the counters and collection of items seem more ominous than they would have normally. There were a lot of good places for an enemy to hide in here.
I moved forward, my feet whispering across the tile. An ornate umbrella, one of those paper ones that would melt in the rain, caught my eye. As a weapon it was lacking, but it was better than nothing.
I plucked it from its place and crept forward. A woman chanted in an unfamiliar language. I’d only heard it a few times, but I recognized it. It was the witches’ unique language of power, used to channel their magic in ways that had never been properly explained to me.
She shouted one last word, the spell’s trigger. There was a burst of air, like someone had punctured a balloon and all the air rushed out. Then the tiny shop shook, the glass rattling before settling.
I dashed into the other room, not letting the logic-bending sight break my focus. I’d been in here before so I knew what to expect.
Miriam’s back room had a stone floor and glass walls and roof, with an antique table in the middle of a mass of greenery. Every plant you could imagine took up room on every available surface. It was a gardener’s paradise, a greenroom where there shouldn’t have been one, the smell of dirt and growing things permeating the air.
Miriam stood in the midst of it all, her back against a wall, several of her plants knocked over at her feet.
Across from her stood another woman, her face wrinkled in rage as she faced down Miriam. Her skin was sallow and cracked, her hair lank around her face. She looked sick. And oddly familiar.
Between the two women, Miriam’s oasis had been turned into a nightmare scene—golems in the midst of pulling themselves out of pots. These golems were different from the ones of last night. For one thing, they were thinner, almost reedy-looking and a lot shorter.
For another, there were green leaves growing from the dirt of their skin. Some had flower
s sprouting from their arms. They looked less menacing this time and more like the jolly green giant if he’d been hit with a flower stick.
Miriam spat another word, a ball of magic the color of midnight hitting a golem in the chest and sending it staggering back a few steps. It shook itself, advancing on Miriam again with slow ponderous steps as she backed along the wall, trying to avoid any more of her pots.
I drove my umbrella into the back of one golem. It sunk into the creature’s chest with a wet glugging sound. I tugged on it, but the umbrella didn’t budge.
The back of the golem’s head melted, a face forming.
I jerked back. Not fast enough, as ropes of mud shot up from the umbrella to wrap around my arm up to my elbow.
Oh, that wasn’t good.
The other witch cackled. “Bet you wish you’d sold me the diet coke and candy bars now.”
The gas station. That’s why she seemed familiar. She’d looked a lot better then, nothing like this pale, sickly creature in front of me, lips cracked and dry and the skin under her eyes sunken and dark.
I didn’t waste time arguing with her as I tugged harder. My arm didn’t budge.
The mud crawled higher, reaching my bicep. I didn’t dare touch it with my other hand, too afraid the mud would latch onto that hand as well and I’d be stuck defenseless, both hands trapped.
There was a thump as the enemy witch slumped to the ground, Liam standing over her with an amused look on his face as he watched me struggle.
I waited, expecting the golems to fold in on themselves. When the mud inched higher, I let out a sound of frustration.
“Are you just going to stand there?” I asked.
He tilted his head and smiled. It wasn’t a particularly nice smile, more like one a wolf gives its struggling prey. “Yes.”
I growled at him as the mud crept higher. It was almost at my shoulder now.
Liam’s smile turned seductive. “Say please.”
“What?”
“Say ‘please Mr. Jackass, save me from my pride.” His eyes twinkled at me.
He was having fun. I was so glad.
I turned back to the golem and gave another vicious tug. There was no way I was begging him for a rescue like some damsel in distress. This damsel was perfectly capable of saving herself. She just needed to calm down and figure out how.
I forced myself to take stock of the situation, to ignore the mud creeping past my shoulder and analyze what I saw.
By this point, Miriam had given up on destroying the golems. She’d locked herself in a bubble of magic that shone with the ferocity of a star.
A faint flicker of magic in the center of the golem called my attention. These were simple constructs. Break the magic it housed and the rest should fall.
That was the theory anyway.
Instead of fighting the onslaught of the mud, I gave into it, plunging both hands deeper. I took a last deep breath, noting distantly that Liam had jolted forward. I was too occupied with my battle to care.
I reached with everything in me for that tiny spark, throwing both my physical and metaphysical self at it. I strained until it was nearly within my grasp, crushing it with my mind and extinguishing its small light even as my physical hands reached the lodestone at its center and yanked it out.
The golem crumbled into dirt. One by one the rest of the golems followed it.
“Guess I didn’t need your help after all,” I told Liam.
He gave me a slow clap.
Miriam’s protective shields slowly dissolved. She looked around at the disaster of her back room with displeasure.
I propped one muddy arm on my hip. “So, Miriam, who’s trying to kill you?”
“I told you she was holding something back,” Liam murmured, coming to stand at my side.
I ignored him. We didn’t know that for sure. Someone had tried to kill us and we were still no more knowledgeable than we were last night.
Miriam’s expression was furious as she took in the greenhouse, her plants in disarray, the roots ragged, her pots cracked and on their sides. I didn’t blame her. The place really was a wreck.
She didn’t answer my question, shooting black lightning at me faster than I could dodge. Pain crackled along my nerve endings, my aborted scream cut off as my lungs seized. Black raced along the edges of my vision, consuming everything.
*
“I’m going to kill that witch,” I groaned, bringing my hand to my head. It pounded with the fury of a thousand drums.
I shouldn’t have dropped my guard. There was no one to blame for my predicament but myself. Stupid mistake, Aileen.
“Consider it done,” a voice rumbled from next to me.
I stilled. It hadn’t occurred to me that I wasn’t alone. It should have.
I squinted over at Liam. His eyes snapped with blue fire. To someone who didn’t know him he looked haughty and remote, but his eyes blazed at me, hinting of anger and worry, and a depth of feeling I would have said was impossible if I hadn’t seen it for myself.
He didn’t move a muscle, just sat there staring at me. Abruptly, I became aware of my hand cradled in his, his thumb stroking slowly over my skin.
“You didn’t actually kill her, did you?” I asked suspiciously.
His face lightened, just slightly, enough for a hint of a smile to come out. “Not yet. Though I cannot say her condition is entirely as it was. The other witch wasn’t so lucky.”
I snorted at the small display of humor. I tried to sit up, groaning, and abandoning the endeavor halfway.
“For once, I’m not going to get angry about your tendency of solving all problems with extreme violence,” I said, wincing.
My entire body ached. Even my teeth hurt. It felt like someone had poured an entire city block worth of electricity into my body. It was not a comfortable feeling.
“Your forbearance is appreciated,” Liam murmured. He watched me closely, his body tight.
“This feels worse than anything the sorcerer ever did to me,” I said.
“It should. She was trying to kill you,” Liam said, his voice grim and his expression turning frightening as his inner monster peaked out.
Everyone had one. A monster they kept buried deep inside, forgetting it even existed until some situation or stimuli triggered its return. Most humans liked to pretend they didn’t have one, and for the most part that worked. We lived in an era where people could lie to themselves and pretend they were civilized—that violence didn’t live in them.
Vampires didn’t have that luxury. Our monsters were close to the surface—just waiting for the slightest spark to set off a killing spree, complete with requisite bloodbath.
His words gave me pause. Miriam wasn’t my biggest fan, but it was hard to wrap my brain around her wanting me dead. Especially considering I’d just helped save her ass.
It would also help to know why Dahlia’s pendant hadn’t worked. I patted my chest for the item in question.
Liam watched me. “Looking for this?”
He held out the small pendant.
“Where did you find it?”
“On the floorboard of my car.”
I examined it, noticing the clasp was broken. That would explain why it had done nothing to repel Miriam’s attack.
Liam’s face was carefully guarded as he watched me. “That is a dangerous toy. I’m surprised the djinn injected so much of her essence into it.”
I gave him a quizzical glance before looking back at the pendant.
“You must be closer to her than I realized,” he said.
He had an odd look on his face as if he didn’t know whether to be happy about that fact or not.
“Should I not wear it?” I asked.
He folded my fingers over it. “Keep it. At least until whatever is going on has run its course.”
I nodded.
“Where is she?” I asked, forcing myself upright.
Liam’s hand tightened before he reached around to steady me.
&nb
sp; “Whew, that was a lot harder than it should have been,” I said, finally sitting without assistance.
“We have her in a secure place,” Liam said.
“I’d like to talk to her,” I told him. My body felt shaky and weak.
“No.”
“No?” I ignored my weakness to fix him with a death stare.
He didn’t look phased by it, but that might have been because I looked and felt like a stiff breeze might blow me over at any moment.
He lifted an eyebrow as if daring me to argue.
I shut my mouth and studied him. He looked intractable, an unmovable mountain that would just get more stubborn the more you argued.
I left the matter for now. We’d come back to it when I didn’t feel quite so weak.
“Where are we?” I asked in a shift of topic.
The bed I’d woken up on was nice, masculine, in a room that matched it.
“The Gargoyle,” he said, his gaze telling me he was anticipating my reaction.
I nodded. The base of operations for the vampire in charge of the surrounding territory.
“Is there a reason you brought me here?” I asked calmly.
“Because I told him to,” a voice said from the doorway.
I twitched but didn’t react, my gaze fixed on Liam’s. Maybe if I ignored the source of the voice, he would go away.
The action seemed to amuse Liam, and he lifted an eyebrow at me as if to ask how long I could pretend the giant prick in the room wasn’t there.
“You couldn’t have brought me anywhere else?” I asked him.
He relaxed back into his chair. “I thought this place had a certain charm.”
I just bet he did.
“Pretending I’m not here won’t make me go away,” Thomas said, his voice patient. Despite that, I thought I detected a note of frustration in his voice.
That was something at least.
“Will it make you fix my damn stairs?” I asked, finally looking over at him.
He gave a long-suffering sigh. “There was a delay in construction. The human company I employed is suffering from personnel problems.”
Another excuse in a long line of them. I believed it as much as I had the last one. If he wanted, he could have the problem solved in less time than it took me to get dressed in the morning. All he had to do was work his vampire mojo and the humans would be falling all over themselves to fulfill his desires.